


Wanderer's Lullaby

by MarionThorne



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Character Death, Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:18:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarionThorne/pseuds/MarionThorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spirits only sleep when they're dead. And so, when Pitch comes across Jack, whose only dying request is companionship and a lullaby, how can he refuse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wanderer's Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so it's kind of bad, but how can you blame me when my screen started getting blurry at the end? TT nTT  
> Also, the song in it is Wanderer's Lullaby by Adriana Figueroa.

Pitch knows the minute he sets foot in Burgess that something has happened. Due to being such a hotspot for supernatural beings, the town has a tendency to let one know how it is 'feeling'. It is generally mischievous, regardless of season, and from the few times he's visited, Pitch has always left feeling as if he had just been given a new beginning.

And yet, tonight, the town seems... almost sad. It sends forth a feeling of hopelessness, mixed with a veritable cocktail of negative emotions. But none of them are the fear that Pitch needs. So, he begins his nightly rounds at Burgess, as he tries to do occasionally since one of his old lair covers used to be here. He'd haunted it for nary three centuries, and he too had a sort of kinship with the town.

Even though the children that lived within the broken down cottage at the edge of town have grown old and then placed their own children there, only to have the process repeated several times, this is where he always sends out his first nightmares. When he emerges from the building to look up into the night sky, his eye lands upon a large crow covered in blood.

Though to many humans, it would be no more than a large bird, Pitch recognizes the spirit for what it is. He can see the magic glimmering in its feathers, hiding their true color beneath a layer of black. Yet, he has never seen this spirit before. Before he can vocalize a question, the bird flies off, splattering drops of disturbingly cold blood against his cheek. He wipes it away and, in curiosity, licks the red stains from the back of his hand. They too taste of magic, although he is certain it is not the crow's. 

He briefly contemplates abandoning tonight's Burgess haunt, but he is still weak from his battle with the Guardians; he doubts that he could make the journey again without bringing himself to exhaustion. So, he makes sure to be especially cautious tonight. He slinks through the shadows, whispering into ears near alleyways, and goading young children back into their homes with thoughts of monsters that cannot be seen through the dark forests.

Tonight's feast is filling, leaving Pitch feeling quite energized. Apparently, the town's displeasure is being unconsciously pushed onto the people, leaving them more open to fear.

It almost a few hours before dawn, which means he should leave soon. Yet, feeling as lifted as he is, he decides to spitefully visit the house of one Jamie Bennet to lay some nasty nightmares upon. Though he has been given time to recuperate and rethink his strategies to something more fitting, his vengeful nature won't let an opportunity for revenge pass.

He slips into the open window of the Bennet home. Yet, when he turns around, there is no little boy upon the bed. Instead, the prone form of Jack Frost lays inept upon the sheets. The boy's eyes are closed, and when the chest rises to bring in air, Pitch finds it easy to detect a wet, rattling intake. Jack's normally frost dusted face is now pale, and when he brings a grey hand to inspect, finds it wet and warm to the touch.

An emotion that Pitch hasn't felt since his defeat bubbles to the surface of his mind with alarming intensity: fear. Fear for Jack, because despite what any human speculates, spirits do not sleep. They depend upon humans to help them feel rested, and when it is finally time to sleep, it means that the calling of the Reaper has lulled them into it. Upon closer inspection, he sees that the chest area of Jack's hoody is stained with red and has covered nearly his entire front. 

It takes no deliberation to decide that Pitch needs to go find help. He spares but a moment's thought as to how the Guardians will attack him first, and then blame him next. He only thinks that this is Jack Frost, spirit of Fun and Winter upon the bed, still. Jack Frost, who one would be hard pressed to find not doing anything, even during the summer months. And suddenly, a long rusted desire to protect, to ensure that offspring, even if not his own, are safe makes his decision certain.

And then, warm, fragile fingers wrap around the wrist that had rested the entire time upon the sleeping spirit's face.

"Pitch...?"

The call is weak, barely more than a whisper. Each letter whistles through on what must be injured lungs, and with an instinct he was unaware he had, Pitch takes Jack's face in his hand and looks into those slightly glazed eyes.

"Do not fear, Frost. I'm going to go get your friends, and they will come here and heal you, and I can leave you to your merry self once more."

He's impatient to leave, for his mind is screaming at him that every second ticking by mean a second that Jack does not have. Yet, when he turns to do so, the grip tightens. It is weak and could be easily broken, but Pitch finds he has no will to do so. He looks back, mouth open and ready to try and assuage Jack again, but then he sees the eyes pleading and knows.

Though Jack has always been in the body of the teenager he died as, it has always been glaringly obvious in those expressive windows that, even with the sense of mischief and life of a boy, Jack had not been so for a very long time. Now, however, his eyes shown with neither the glitter of a boy looking for trouble nor of a man ready to face the world. They had dulled with weariness, and had the blur Pitch had seen too many times before to be unable to recognize as the eyes of the dying. But Jack's words are what truly kept him anchored and killed all resistance to leave, despite the futility of his efforts.

"Don't leave. Please."

And Pitch, too, suddenly finds himself weary despite his night's harvest. So he walks over to the bed and sits down at the head, next to Jack. The spirit allows his grip on Pitch's wrist to go lax, and with a wheeze and grunt, attempts to move closer. Somehow familiar with the motions, Pitch carefully pulls the boy's head into his lap and allows one hand to stroke the still wintery snow white hair. Jack lets out a shuddering sigh and relaxes once more.

And yet, somehow, it feels wrong for Pitch to let him go in silence like this. Jack is exuberance incarnate, and so Pitch starts talking.

He speaks of soothing things, of things he hardly remembers, like golden butterflies leaving behind golden dust upon a small head of long, black hair. He speaks of the Golden Ages, because, and he relays as much to Jack, he believes that Jack would have particularly liked them. Jack asks questions. Did you ever get to drive in a space ship? Could stars really grant wishes back then?

He gets to see a little bit of mirth return to those eyes with his answers, and somehow, that brings Pitch peace. And then Jack starts asking questions about Pitch himself. It seems like hours they spend, and yet even though they have spent centuries, and millenia in Pitch's case, completely and utterly alone, they learn so much about each other in the time they spend talking that they feel to each other like old friends.

Soon, though, it becomes more difficult for Jack to speak. More blood comes from his lips than words, which Pitch dutifully wipes away. He tells Pitch what happened, urgently, knowing his was short. He tells of the Rainbow Crow that had turned black in the attempt to keep winter from killing the animals long before Jack had been born; how upon seeing the winter spirit, the bird panicked and attacked him out of fear. Yet, seeing the angry look cross Pitch's face, he beseeched the other to take no action against it, that he would have done the same if faced with the embodiment of something that had once tried to kill his friends. There is silence for an agonizing minute after Jack's revelation, and then their eyes meet, Jack's droopy like a child with a belly of warm milk, and Jack asks if Pitch would sing to him like his mother used to.

Clearing away the lump in his throat and feeling his eyes begin to wet, he obliges. He calls forth a lullaby that he feels would help Jack's soul rest, and allows his feelings out for the first time in centuries through song.

" _Wandering child of the earth  
do you know just how much you're worth?  
You have walked this path since your birth  
You were destined for more_

 _There are those who'll tell you you're wrong  
They will try to to silence your song   
But right here is where you belong   
So don't search anymore._"

It is obvious that Jack fights to keep his eyes open, but the previous line seems to be what allows him to close them. Still, he breathes rasping breaths, and Pitch continues singing. His hand continues carding through that white hair, and he continues with the lullaby until the very end of it. When he looks down, the blood soaked chest has stopped rising and falling.

And for the first time, Pitch weeps not only for death, but the death of a friend. His spine crooks toward the body, and he holds it as if his embrace could return the soul that once called it home. He sobs bitterly for a long time, until he feels rays of dawn itch at his skin.

It is only with the knowledge that staying here would perhaps leave him tired enough to be unable to carry the body to its destination. It is the first time since his defeat that he has stepped foot near this lake, and now he hopes it will be the last. The surface is covered in a layer of ice that never thins once as he walks to the middle of it to place the limp body upon Jack Frost's final home. He brushes away the snowy hair from those closed lids and allows himself a last look upon the youthful visage.

Only once he is back to the shore does he hear the sound of cracking, and when he turns around, he sees that the frigid water has taken the boy within its embrace once again.

He does not return to his lair once all is said and done. He knows the Guardians will soon question him about Jack's wearabouts, and that putting it off will likely get him killed.

So he goes to Santauff Clausen and requests audience with North. North, who is incensed with the thought that Pitch may be foolishly making an announcement of his undoubtedly dastardly intentions, rushes out to meet him with scimitars bared. However, it does not take long for him to return his weapons to their sheathes after taking in Pitch's stricken appearance - eyes puffy and red, with tear tracks still visible on his face.

"Call the others. A tragedy has befallen a spirit, and I believe you all should be informed of it."

And so North does, with not a sign of trepidation, but more so of worry. A spirit had died, then - an uncommon occurrence that was generally either cause for mass celebration or mass mourning. While he waits with the aurora borealis shining its beacon across the sky, he attempts to gently pull the answers from the dark man, only to receive curt replies and downcast glances. 

They all arrive rather quickly and assemble in the globe room. All, except Jack.

Once Frost's absence is mentioned, Bunny is quick to pin Pitch against a wall with a boomerang to his throat.

"What have you done with him, you bastard?! I swear, if you've hurt him-"

Pitch hissed in the rabbit's face. "I did nothing to him, you _animal_. Now get off me!"

Instead of retreating from Pitch's steady push against his shoulders, Bunny only dug the weapon in harder and returned Pitch's hiss with equal venom. "At least we animals know not to attack a pack, for fear of the hunters."

"Then tell that to the Rainbow Crow!"

This gives the Guardians a moment of pause. Toothiana glides forward to rest a hand on Bunny's shoulder. "Let him speak, Bunny." Then she turned to face Pitch, and her voice hardened into flint. "Pitch, something has happened to Jack and you know what it is. There are no games here."

Once Bunny reluctantly removed his boomerang from Pitch's now bruising throat, the shadow spirit slumped against the wall and sighed. "No games."

And so, the Guardians and Pitch gathered together into a circle, Pitch relaying what Jack had told him of the Rainbow Crow, and then going on to describe how he had found the winter sprite laying prone upon the bed of Jamie Bennet and already so, terribly close to death...

More tears were shed when he went on to explain that Jack now rested at the bottom of Burgess Lake after passing away in the very same bed Pitch had found him on. Tooth's loud, hiccuping cries joined with the deep, booming sobs of North. Golden tears dribbled down Sandy's face, which was scrunched into an expression of utmost pain. Bunny had hunched over in a similar manner to how Pitch had, yet not a single sound escaped him. No one would comment on the spots left by tears on the ground.

By now, the Big Five minus One had all come together to hold each other in their pain, as if by touch the four of them could recreate the fifth. At this point, Pitch decided his leave was due, and so exited back into his lair from the shadows of the room.

This is where he sat the next night and many nights after, staring out of the sole opening into the outside world at the large, bright rock in the sky. And he felt betrayed by it, for the spirit of a boy who had perhaps been used in worse ways by that same rock than he.


End file.
